I've never had to replace the clutch on any of my previous cars ('03 Nissan Frontier w/ 180K miles, '06 Acura RSX Type-S w/ 50k miles) before I ended up selling them. My question is, how do I know if my clutch is going bad?

I only ask because recently when my wife was driving the car in Manhattan Beach (bottom of the hill by the peir) she had a hard time going up the hill from a stop. After the fifth time failing I had to switch seats with my wife and even I stalled it once before I had to convert to the E-brake trick . It was a good thing that it was midnight and nobody was behind us. Anyway, I could smell the clutch big time. Even when we got home after about 20 min of driving on the freeway I could smell that $h!t .

That's never happened to me before and I've never smelled a clutch burnt like that. Anyway, how badly damaged is the clutch and will I need to change it soon?

Thanks for input

 

Mine smelled for 4-5 WEEKS after I burnt it bad on a road tune. It seems fine now with about 1500 miles on it since. It was the worst clutch burn smell I had ever smelled. And I have a been around cars for a long time. Unless it is slipping don't worry about it.

 

When you say slipping do you mean that the clutch is not grabing the gear when changing gears? What does slipping the clutch feel like ? I've never experienced a clutch slipping before so I can't compare a good clutch to a slipping one. Sorry for the stupid newb questions.

 

You can see RPM jumps if your clutch is slipping. Basically if your rpms are high and the car is not moving like its supposed to your clutch is slipping. trust me you will know when it is slipping. And I had the same thing I launched it when I first got the car and the clutch smelled so bad for a few days, but no slipping so im good